The radiator was concealed by a Jap screen,and over the top of this some Arab scarfs were flung.There was a superabundance of clocks.China pugs guarded the hearth;a brass sunflower smiled from the top of either andiron,and a brass peacock spread its tail before them inside a high filigree fender;on one side was a coalhod in 'repousse'brass,and on the other a wrought iron wood-basket.Some red Japanese bird-kites were stuck about in the necks of spelter vases,a crimson Jap umbrella hung opened beneath the chandelier,and each globe had a shade of yellow silk.
March,when he had recovered his self-command a little in the presence of the agglomeration,comforted himself by calling the bric-a-brac Jamescracks,as if this was their full name.
The disrespect he was able to show the whole apartment by means of this joke strengthened him to say boldly to the superintendent that it was altogether too small;then he asked carelessly what the rent was.
"Two hundred and fifty."
The Marches gave a start,and looked at each other.
"Don't you think we could make it do?"she asked him,and he could see that she had mentally saved five hundred dollars as the difference between the rent of their house and that of this flat."It has some very pretty features,and we could manage to squeeze in,couldn't we?""You won't find another furnished flat like it for no two-fifty a month in the whole city,"the superintendent put in.
They exchanged glances again,and March said,carelessly,"It's too small.""There's a vacant flat in the Herodotus for eighteen hundred a year,and one in the Thucydides for fifteen,"the superintendent suggested,clicking his keys together as they sank down in the elevator;"seven rooms and bath.""Thank you,"said March;"we're looking for a furnished flat."They felt that the superintendent parted from them with repressed sarcasm.
"Oh,Basil,do you think we really made him think it was the smallness and not the dearness?""No,but we saved our self-respect in the attempt;and that's a great deal.""Of course,I wouldn't have taken it,anyway,with only six rooms,and so high up.But what prices!Now,we must be very circumspect about the next place."It was a janitress,large,fat,with her arms wound up in her apron,who received them there.Mrs.March gave her a succinct but perfect statement of their needs.She failed to grasp the nature of them,or feigned to do so.She shook her head,and said that her son would show them the flat.There was a radiator visible in the narrow hall,and Isabel tacitly compromised on steam heat without an elevator,as the flat was only one flight up.When the son appeared from below with a small kerosene hand-lamp,it appeared that the flat was unfurnished,but there was no stopping him till he had shown it in all its impossibility.When they got safely away from it and into the street March said:"Well,have you had enough for to-night,Isabel?Shall we go to the theatre now?""Not on any account.I want to see the whole list of flats that Mr.
Fulkerson thought would be the very thing for us."She laughed,but with a certain bitterness.
"You'll be calling him my Mr.Fulkerson next,Isabel.""Oh no!"
The fourth address was a furnished flat without a kitchen,in a house with a general restaurant.The fifth was a furnished house.At the sixth a pathetic widow and her pretty daughter wanted to take a family to board,and would give them a private table at a rate which the Marches would have thought low in Boston.
Mrs.March came away tingling with compassion for their evident anxiety,and this pity naturally soured into a sense of injury."Well,I must say I have completely lost confidence in Mr.Fulkerson's judgment.Anything more utterly different from what I told him we wanted I couldn't imagine.
If he doesn't manage any better about his business than he has done about this,it will be a perfect failure.""Well,well,let's hope he'll be more circumspect about that,"her husband returned,with ironical propitiation."But I don't think it's Fulkerson's fault altogether.Perhaps it's the house-agents'.They're a very illusory generation.There seems to be something in the human habitation that corrupts the natures of those who deal in it,to buy or sell it,to hire or let it.You go to an agent and tell him what kind of a house you want.He has no such house,and he sends you to look at something altogether different,upon the well-ascertained principle that if you can't get what you want you will take what you can get.You don't suppose the 'party'that took our house in Boston was looking for any such house?He was looking for a totally different kind of house in another part of the town.""I don't believe that!"his wife broke in.
"Well,no matter.But see what a scandalous rent you asked for it.""We didn't get much more than half;and,besides,the agent told me to ask fourteen hundred.""Oh,I'm not blaming you,Isabel.I'm only analyzing the house-agent and exonerating Fulkerson.""Well,I don't believe he told them just what we wanted;and,at any rate,I'm done with agents.Tomorrow I'm going entirely by advertisements."
